A Jersey Guy: College football indestructible
Greg Sankey, the astute commissioner of the Southeastern Conference knew two years ago when Covid-19 was threatening to shut down everything.
The message the SEC and Sankey made clear from the start was that even if the SEC had to play by itself, there WOULD be a college football season in 2020.
The SEC has always known, using "it (CFB really) just means more.
For the rest of us, it has always been a tougher sell.
College football succeeds, of course, because it is really too big to fail--with media rights deal with a 12 team playoff expected t be in the 3 Billion dollar
range.'
We can change the rules, break the rules, strange the structure, pay players, not play players, fiddle with all aspects of the game, which bring it closer and closer to a business than a sport...and yet...it not only survives, it thrives, giving us its best.
We saw that in graphic fashion on New Year's Eve in the two best semifinal of the CFP 4-team playoff era
.We saw competitive games, interesting (for awhile) match ups in the other 4 New Year's Six Bowl games--Orange, Sugar, Cotton and Rose
With the most at stake in the semifinals, the Fiesta Bowl gave us an epic down to the few seconds battle before TCU held off Michigan, 51-45, which was then topped by Georgia's come-from behind 42-4 victory over Michigan, which wasn't settled until a Wolverine field goal went wide left with four seconds remaining.
""The winner tonight was college football,'' sighed Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, who has brought the Wolverines back into prominence, but might return to the NFL.
Which as it should be.
Lord knows, college football seems dysfunctional in its leadership.
The NCAA has sprinted away from most decision making items and seems content to merely administrate college football and maintain the primary money maker, the NCAA men's basketball tournament.
Rules about eligibility, names, images and licensing issues and transfer portal issues are being dodged or handed back to membership.
Incoming NCAA President Charlie Baker will have a full time job in bringing everyone together to even get a consensus agreement.
Cast aside for a variety of reasons, much of it dictated by television money, are long-standing traditions which make college football almost unique in its profile
The latest volley which will send UCLA and USC to the Big Ten is typical of the mind set of administrators who are dictated by dollar signs.
What remains intact and was again evident over the weekend was the sport itself, where the performs on the field transcend all other issues of what school is conference affiliation, how much do the players--not student athletes--get paid by boosters and sponsors or where the players wearing the uniforms played last season or will play next season.
There will be more changes, more outrageous or head-scratching announcements in the immediate future, starting with the expansion to a 12 team playoff starting in 2024.
College football will survive and thrive because it just means more.